Sri Lankan board announces $1 million bonus if the team wins World Cup T20

Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara

Sri Lankan Cricket Board (SLC) has announced that it will provide a bonus of $1 million to the Lankan players if they manage to win the finals of the ongoing 2014 World Cup T20 at Bangladesh. The announcement came after Sri Lanka had booked their spot in the finals by defeating the West Indies via the Duckworth-Lewis method in a rain-affected semi-final match.

The board said in a statement: “The Executive Committee of SLC which met at an emergency meeting this morning decided to offer $ 1.5 million (including the original fee of $500,000) to the national team players in the event that they win the final.”

Be it the 50-over format or the T20, Sri Lanka have had a terrible record at the World Cup knockouts in the last 7 years: they have lost the finals of the 50-over World Cup in 2007 and 2011 and the finals of the 20-over World Cup in 2009 and 2012.

With two of their stalwarts – Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawerdene – deciding to hang up their boots in the shortest format at the end of the World Cup, the Sri Lankan team will be motivated to break the jinx and give them a grand send-off. The fact that they have dropped their under-performing captain Dinesh Chandimal for the final two matches shows the kind of intent that is there within the squad.